| Making
the Chart, p. 8 - 31
"Households With Computers
(Percent) 1980 to 2000"
Students will need a color pencil for the line graph on
this page. Red is a good choice.
Students should study the table, then neatly place dots
for the data and connect the dots with straight lines. Notice that
the lines on the graph have been arranged to show the years in which the
Census data is available for households with computers.
What the Chart Shows
The graph shows a very rapid growth in the number of households
with a home computer. In a span of just twenty years, the rate rises
from about one percent to over fifty percent.
Keep in mind that the earliest computers sold for use
by electronics hobbyists were developed in the mid-1970s. By today's
standards, they had very low computing power, and often came as kits requiring
assembly.
The personal computer industry was soaring by the mid-1980s
as computing power grew and prices fell. The growth is certainly
a good example of the capitalist system at its best. People with
ideas and people with capital to invest poured their knowledge and resources
into creating new businesses. The result was an incredible burst
of creativity that is still rolling through the American economy.
Scroll down to see the finished graph
|
Making
the Chart, p. 8 - 32
"Number of Transistors on
Best Microprocessor Chip"
Students will need a color pencil to complete the bar graph
on this page. Green is a good choice.
Point out to students that the first bar will be very
short. For 1980, the table shows that the best commonly available
microprocessor chip had 29,000 transistors. Each of the very small
marks on the bar graph represents 10,000 transistors. (The larger
increments represent 100,000 transistors.)
What the Chart Shows
The graph shows an incredible spurt in the technology of
microprocessor chips during the 1980s. These chips are the heart
of desktop computers, and do the actual manipulation of data according
to the directions carried by the software program.
The transistor circuits are etched onto the surface of
small silicon wafers, using a photographic process. The improvements
in this microprocessor technology allowed the creation of computers that
were much more powerful and much cheaper.
The increased power of microprocessors also allowed
computers to use color and display graphics, rather than just lines of
text on a single color screen.
Scroll down to see the finished graph
|
